Sometime in January I signed up to be a poll worker for the Ohio primary election because I thought it might be interesting. It was program for students to become more involved in the election, which they named something corny like Protecting Democracy (I just checked and it is called Future of Democracy). They ended up kicking me out of class so I could go to this silly training thing where they made me sign fifty different forms and then listen to a guy talk about how to scan people’s IDs, which I didn’t really listen to and there was so much information that I didn’t really bother remembering it. They also handed me a 70-page long handbook and a troubleshooting guide, and then they made me take a test on all the knowledge I’d just learned.
I ended up not opening the book until about two days before the election because I wasn’t going to remember the whole thing anyway, so I’d just skim over the important parts. And I didn’t even look at the troubleshooting guide. I figured if the scanner broke, I’d let someone else handle it. A lot of the book was mainly focused on the set-up and pack-up procedure, in which you have to document the serial numbers on tamper seals and replace those seals and it’s all very boring. I didn’t want to do any of that so I just let my coworkers do it, who were mostly all elderly ladies, save for the manager and another student worker.
On the day before the election I had to show up and set things up. Mostly I just stood around until somebody told me to go lift things or carry things or assemble things or hang up signs. I didn’t really do anything so I went home not having accomplished much, which was fine by me because everyone was getting paid the same anyway so I didn’t feel the need be a boy scout about it and be constantly asking if they needed me for anything.
On election day I had to show up at 5:30 in the morning, which is pretty ludicrous considering the set-up from the day before had me going home at around eight, so I would have had to have gone straight to bed to get a decent amount of sleep. I don’t remember what time I fell asleep but I can’t imagine it would have been far from midnight, and I was pretty irate when I dragged myself out of bed at 4:30 on Tuesday morning while the rest of my school had a day off. Once I was there they made me do some miscellaneous tasks, like making the other student worker and me put out handicapped parking signs in the parking lot. I should mention that it was freezing and snowing out there.
At six the doors opened and I was surprised to see there were already people even though it was freezing and still dark out. They’d assigned me to work the pollbooks unfortunately, so I was tasked with the crappy customer service job. Pretty much what it entailed was me asking for some form of ID, verifying their information, making them sign something, handing them their ballot, and guiding them through the process of using a tablet screen because most of the voters were elderly and were confused. It was all very boring. I liked the people who didn’t try to talk to me, because sometimes some real extraverts would walk in and try to talk joke with me or something and I’d have to pretend to smile and laugh, which sounded probably like “Oh… ha ha.” Not very convincing. There was even one guy who referred to me by my name because it was written on my nametag and that made me feel a level of corniness that shouldn’t be subjected to minors. The most depressing thing was that I was working from six in the morning until around eight at night. The hours should be criminal.
I’d brought a book and a water bottle and a little container of peanuts. They didn’t serve any food and though I had a one hour lunch break, I had no car and so I ended up not taking a break the whole time. I also ended up not even touching the water or peanuts because strangely enough I never felt hungry or thirsty or even tired the whole time. I did finish the book, and after I did I felt extremely bored.
I should reiterate how cold it was. Every single time someone opened the door and walked in a cold gust of wind would fill the room and sting my skin, and the signs taped on the walls would go flying and someone would have to tape them back up again.
There was a rule that didn’t allow campaigners to be within 100 feet of the entrance, so a little bit away by the parking lot there were these guys holding signs. They were out there for hours and one has to admire their tenacity to stand up for their beliefs, although not once did I ever get a good look at their sign or learn what they were trying to support or oppose. At one point one of the campaigners walked in with a sign and my manager told him he can’t bring the sign in here and the campaigner got all offended and was like “FINE. IF YOU DON”T WANT MY SIGN IN HERE I WILL PUT IT AWAY AND COME BACK. I WAS JUST COMING IN HERE TO ASK A QUESTION MAN. YOU COULD HAVE JUST TOLD ME THAT. YOU DIDN”T NEED TO YELL. FINE.” Then he walked outside and didn’t come back in and I watched him freeze out in the parking lot with his sign for a few hours.
Another weird guy came in at one point. The other student worker with me was Muslim and was wearing a hijab, and this guy came in was like, “What’s with the hood?” or something like that. Then she explained that it’s a hijab and he acted all surprised as if he’d never heard of that even though I’m sure he knew it was a hijab, in a sort of passive aggressive way. Then she had to explain Islam to this guy and this guy just had this lifeless smile and asked her if she knew who Jesus was. And he says, “You should do some research on that. Look it up,” as if she was so ignorant she’d never heard of Jesus before. Then after we handed him his ballot he tried to shake her hand and she explained to him that she couldn’t due to her religion. The fact the he only tried to shake her hand makes me think that he already knew that she couldn’t. Or maybe he was genuinely just a crazy Christian who’d never heard of any other religion before.
Anyhow. My older coworkers wanted me to switch jobs every few hours so I had experience doing all of them. The other two positions I had to cover was handing out the ballots and sitting at the ballot scanner, which were somehow even more boring than scanning IDs. The first one, all you had to do is hand out the correct party ballot. The second one just involves sitting at the ballot scanner, collecting ballot stubs, and explaining to voters how to use the thing even though there are instructions on the screen. I disliked sitting at the ballot scanner the most because I hated repeating the same instructions over and over to every person who came up with their ballots.
At 7:30 the polls closed and we had to clean up, which mostly involved me carrying things and lifting things and taking down signs and disassembling stuff just as before. None if it was very interesting.